Maybe Tonight
by BreyerRose
Summary: Punk is ready to walk away and after his outburst on Raw he's sure his time has come. But a late night visitor tries to convince him he needs to stay for all of them... but especially for her.


~Heyyy Guyyys ^-^~

~Man it's been a while. Sorry. I've been super busy and haven't been able to write a lot, but that's totally gonna change. I've got so many ideas and just can't wait to get them posted. This was written by request for Baybeetymz. It didn't take sooo long this time lol. Hope you like it hun ^-^ ^-^ As always Reviews are greatly encouraged, I really wanna hear what you guys think.~

~P.S. I'm totally loving HHH as the New CEO. lol. Anybody else?~

~Maybe Tonight~

Punk sighed contentedly as he stepped out of the shower adding to the hot air that was hovering thickly in the bathroom. He wiped away the drops of water clinging to his skin then dragged the towel over his short crop of black hair. Once in a while he still found himself regretting the agreement to cut it. He shook his head and then combed his hand through his damp hair before he used the towel to wipe off the huge mirror above the basin. He looked tired; dark circles rimmed his bloodshot hazel eyes. But there was a new spark lighting them, he could see his reflection and imagined watching the heavy black weight that had forced his shoulders to hunch for the past few years lifting, allowing him to finally stand tall again. He permitted himself an indulgent smile noting the way his eyes crinkled and the way his heart suddenly felt free of any constraints. He even chuckled as he picked up his toothbrush.

He finished up in the bathroom and headed out to main part of the hotel room. He grabbed the pair of track shorts he'd tossed on the bed before his shower and pulled them on. Not bothering with the shirt that lay next to them he plopped himself down on the bed and reached for the remote. A knock stopped him from hitting the power button. A different kind of sigh noisily escaped his lips. He dropped the remote and yanked his band tee over his head before he got up to look through the peep hole; his brow quirked when he saw his visitor. He opened the door for her and casually leaned against the frame.

"What brings you by?"

She raised a perfectly sculpted black eyebrow in retort and brushed past him into his hotel room.

"Well come on in," he said sarcastically shutting the door behind him.

She glanced around his room with her cat-like caramel eyes pausing on his suitcase that was packed and ready for his flight in the morning. Tucking a strand of her long inky black hair behind her ear she turned back to him. Her gaze agitated his nerve endings; he could feel his light mood and happiness slowly receding like waves pulling back from the beach. He pulled his lip ring into his mouth.

"I'm not sure if I should congratulate you or slap you," she hissed at him. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't. I finally just stopped thinking and started doing what _felt_ right."

"Unemployment feels right to you?" She snapped. "You're so stupid; you're the only one of us who really made it here and you just threw it away like that!"

"Does Dragon know you're here?" He asked crossing his arms over his chest.

"Did Raven put you up to your little speech tonight?"

His jaw visibly tensed; he was annoyed that his question hadn't stung her more and he was angry at her certainty.

"What do you want Gail? If you came to lecture me I don't wanna hear it; nothing that you can say is gonna make me regret what I said tonight. It was all true and I'm done biting my tongue."

"All you did was let your emotions get the better of you. You just let them win; you let them take it all away from you."

"No, I stopped kissing Vince's ass tonight. They didn't _take_ anything from me. I'm just done with letting them fuck me over."

Gail shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest obscuring the butterfly logo on her pink tank top. "You're so stupid Punk; selfish and stupid. Martyrs aren't supposed to be arrogant."

"That's why I'm finally fighting back," he argued. "I'm done falling in line behind Cena and Mysterio. I'm done playing by the rules of a game I can't win. I'm done being their puppet. For the first time in a long time I'm in charge and it feels damn good to watch McMahon squirm."

"What do you gain out of that? What did your stunt get you?"

"Attention. For the past few months Vince has been promising me everything I want so I'd renew my contract-"

"Then why didn't you take it?" She interrupted. "You've worked too long and too hard to just throw away your whole career."

"Exactly!" He threw his arms up exasperatedly. "I deserve to be on the programs and the cups and all the other bullshit they pawn off to the fans, but I'm not. Cena, Orton, Mysterio, and the Miz are. I'm better than all them in the ring and on the mic but they still get their faces plastered on all that crap. And now Vince wants to give me that, but not because he thinks I deserve the recognition but because he doesn't wanna lose. Well he can shove all that shit up his ass and save it for the jerk offs that pucker up for him. I'm done."

"You don't even get it," a small tired sigh escaped her. "You already had all the recognition that mattered. You've been in championship main events, you've been the champion; the face of this company, and you're on the card at every single pay-per-view. You're in televised segments every week. The rest of us have to handle more than just not being recognized on the merchandise. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had a decent dark match? Never mind one on television. You keep saying you're done with all the bullshit but you haven't really had to deal with that much."

Punk gaped at her; he tried to argue, tried to ask her where the hell she had been for the past few years if she hadn't seen the way he had been held down and pushed back. But the words couldn't make it pass the sheer astonishment he felt.

Gail took his uncharacteristic moment of silence to continue, "I'm not saying they've handed you things on a silver platter. I know the recent bits they've been putting you in haven't been remarkable for you, but the feud with Jeff put you over so much-"

"Don't." He growled his fists balled up tight at his sides. "He was never worth my time; cracked out has been. I still can't believe they put the strap on him before me. And then what happened: I got buried back down with the mid-carders again while they pushed a fucking reality T.V. reject into the main event spot on _Raw is Cena_; because that's all this god damn company is anymore, and on top of that they booked me to be the leader of that god forsaken stable of talentless hacks. My last few years with this company have not been satisfactory to say the least."

Gail's amber eyes had grown wide in the middle of his tirade and she fought the instinct to take a step back.

"How can you look so surprised?" He demanded while dragging his tattooed hand down over his face; his own eyes narrowed accusingly at her. "They turned the woman's division into a joke here. You can work circles around the bitches they have. They put over bleach bottled blondes and tits and ass before they give you a fucking chance to show a quarter of what you can do. How do you stand that? When did you sell out?"

"Jesus, when did you become so bitter Philly?"

His body tensed so much at the softly spoken name he jerked forward, but suddenly his shoulders slumped and he let his head hang down. He wished his hair was long enough to cover his face again. She almost reached out to touch him when she saw him wince. But she quickly regained her senses.

"I know what I gave up, a part of me knew even before I signed the new contract here. But I had to take that chance. We all had to. It was supposed to be better when you finally made it here. We all thought that Vince had finally gotten it; we just didn't know we were gonna be called up to be held down."

"We should have known. I should have known." He sighed dejectedly and turned back to the bed. "I can't believe it took me this long to realize something I knew all along."

"It was so promising on paper, ECW looked so good-"

"_That_ was _never_ ECW." He whipped around to correct her. "The fact that they were calling it that after all the shit they talked about the _real _ECW and Paul Heyman should have been the first sign. It was supposed to be _our_ platform, but they still just put their own guys over; Christian, Chavo… It was just the mid-card show 'cause they didn't have room on Raw with all of Cena's and Orton's spots. We're all so much better than them. And you know it Cat."

"Are we?" She challenged fighting to ignore the old nick-name. "What makes you so much better than John? He's willing to put his spot in the company on the line for you to make sure you get your match at the pay-per-view because he _knows_ you've earned it. He's already talked to Hunter about it."

"Oh how noble. I don't need Cena to do anything to for me. Fuck his charity!"

"Is it charity that makes him push for all the younger guys on the roster? He's the only reason Zack Ryder is even in T.V. segments. And look what he and Chris Jericho did for Matt before he left with his shoulder injury last October. You were even booked to put him out."

"Yeah look where our supposed feud went? We could have killed it. It would have been epic, his high-flying style versus my MMA and submissions. They treat him just like they treat you. If they gave either of you the opportunity you'd show up the whole fucking roster! He's in the Money in the Bank and you know they'll make him nothing but a spot monkey. He's never going to win, the game is too rigged."

"Bryan's going over!" She suddenly snapped.

"What?" He melted down onto the mattress.

Gail stalked toward him like a tigress approaching an easy kill. "Bryan's winning the briefcase. There's talk of him keeping it and cashing it in at Wrestlemania. And Matt's got a program going with Swagger. They're not in televised segments as much as John or Randy… Or even you, but they're making it because of you," she poked him hard in the chest with her manicured finger.

"Because you can carry a whole stable full of new guys and make it look legit, because you can be sidelined for weeks with a hip injury and still be the best part about the live show when you do commentary. Don't you understand that it's not about those god damned programs and cups, it's about making sure at least one of us are in the main angles so that we're all not forgotten or at the very least so we can all hope for something. Tonight when you gave that shout out to Colt, after the way they screwed him here, it was like you telling all of us it will be okay again. It was almost like it used to be, back before this became nothing but a job and we'd hang out at every wrestling show we could get to."

"Well that's just not the way it is anymore," he argued. "They'll never give Colt another chance and we're never gonna get that back. We're all too damn old and jaded. And Vince still owns half our souls; we can't even be seen at other wrestling promotions."

"Which is why you need to stay here and keep our names on everyone's lips. You made it Punk; you proved that our dream can be real."

He shook his head fiercely, "Don't do that. Don't put all that on me; I'm not the fearless kid ready to fight the world anymore. I tried and I lost alright. And I'm tired... So tired."

Gail watched all the spirit leak out of him through tiny holes in his armor. She wasn't sure when his defenses had started to chip but she wondered how she had missed this before now. He looked so beaten, so haggard and exhausted; seeing him like this suddenly made his live outburst tonight seem less unexpected.

"I can't keep fighting anymore Cat, I just can't. Not when I hit wall after wall and have to watch you, Dragon, and Matt job to assholes who can't wrestle to save their fucking life."

"But you don't have to do it alone anymore," Gail finally reached out to touch him. She let her fingers card through his damp hair and come to rest on the scruff of his jaw. "We're here to back you up now. We're able to be there with you now because of the spot you secured for us in this company. They never would have given Matt any chance at all if you hadn't been so amazing. And they never would have considered finally signing Bryan if you hadn't done so well. Don't go out like this; don't let them tarnish what you accomplished."

"But don't you see… I haven't accomplished anything. Cena and Orton are still the champions, you've been buried by those fucking twin twats Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb," he shuddered. "I tried so hard and nothings any different. You should've stayed in TNA, you shouldn't have followed me."

"How could I stay when you weren't there?" She tilted his head up to stare into his weary hazel eyes. "And according to Christopher and AJ things really aren't any better over there these days. I made my choice and I'm okay with it."

"Well so have I," he broke away from her caress. "I'm more than okay with it. I can't wait… They're going to have to fire me don't ya think? Vince can't keep trying to get me to renew with all the shit I said out there about him and his family."

His wild smirk grew with each word; he stood up and brushed past Gail. She bit her bottom lip as she clasped her empty hands together.

"No, he couldn't," she replied although she wasn't sure if he wanted her to.

Suddenly Gail felt a warm callused hand lift her chin up. A set of very familiar olive colored eyes were boring into hers. And she knew that he had figured it out; her visit to him tonight had been for purely selfish reasons. Everything she had said was true, but she knew as she crept out of bed, silently pocketed the key card, and closed the door quietly behind her that the urgency to stop him from leaving this company was really an urgent need to stop him from leaving her again. She clutched at the front of his t-shirt pleadingly; she would never ask him to stay for her.

Punk felt her grip his shirt and he slid his hand up her cheek to the base of her neck. He pulled her into him resting his forehead against hers. She blinked those feline eyes at him and he fell into their caramel swirls. He'd always been the fearless leader in their gang of underdogs and misfits but she'd always been his muse; second only to the sport they'd both dedicated their lives to. He'd always seen them conquering the industry together, but somehow his vision had gone awry. Some battles had just been too great and he couldn't afford to take his focus away from them. Now that he suddenly had that luxury she wasn't his anymore. He'd already asked so much of her; he couldn't ask anything more.

"Go back to Dragon," his lips just brushed over hers as he whispered the words.

Her eyes slid closed, "when will I see you next?"

He shrugged and she felt the movement in his muscles.

"If I'm really about to lose you in the morning then I'm not giving up tonight."

"I never… I never meant to-"He stammered.

"I know." She nodded against his forehead. "I made my choice."


End file.
